Tea Party and Play
by Roxy Earhardt-Myers
Summary: In 10 years time, Eric and Taylor's lives have managed to change beyond recognition.


**Tea Party and Play**

Taylor parked her car in front of the house and got out. She took a moment to look at it and sighed. Somehow after almost four years of living here, it still felt strange. Never had she ever pictured her life ending up here. With a small smile Taylor climbed the steps to the porch and opened the front door.

The silence that hit her felt off somehow. She stored her bag, shoes and coat in the hallway closet. A quick glance into the living room found it empty. In the kitchen Taylor got herself a glass of water and peeked through the window into the backyard, but no one was outside either.

Knowing Eric had to be home, she walked upstairs. One of the bedroom doors was opened and Taylor looked inside. She bit back a giggle and leaned against the doorframe.

The walls of the room were painted white, pink accents all around the room. The bed was made with pink unicorn bedding. In the middle of the room was a small table with four chairs. In one of the chairs a large stuffed Q-Rex with a pink ribbon around his neck was hosting a tea party, more stuffed animals were scattered around the scene. And in the other three chair he had three human guests.

Eric was perched awkwardly on the child sized chair, but it didn't seem to bother him. Nor did the children's sun hat on his head or the pink feather boa around his neck. Karl had a matching boa and was sipping pretend tea from a plastic cup. The fact that her surprise baby was going to be 10-years-old tomorrow, still felt unreal sometimes.

And in the last chair sat her second surprise baby. Never had she thought that after Karl, she and Eric would've had another kid. Eric had even had a vasectomy just after they had had Karl to make sure they didn't.

It had been during a routine check-up that she'd been told she was pregnant again. When the ultrasound showed she was already 16 weeks along, Taylor had gone numb.

_Eric walked into the kitchen, seeing Taylor sit there. 'Where's Karl?' he asked._

'_With Wes and Jen,' she answered. 'I wanted a night alone with you.'_

_Something in her tone told him she didn't mean there were any wild plans for tonight. It was then he noticed the black and white pictures in front of Taylor._

'_What are those?'_

'_Ultrasound pictures of your daughter,' Taylor answered flatly._

_Eric froze, his mind going in overdrive. From what he remembered when their friends had kids, pregnancy weeks were well into the double digits when they could be told the gender of their baby._

_His phone was in his hand before he knew it and searching for a contact, he hadn't used in over five years, but never bothered deleting. Eric put the phone on speaker once it got through. Taylor's eyes lifted to meet his._

'_How may we help you?'_

'_Yeah, hi, this is Eric Myers. I had a vasectomy at your clinic a few years back and I need a new sperm count.'_

'_Your file says your count was zero and the procedure was successful,' the receptionist answered._

'_Yeah, and now I'm being told I'm going to be a father again,' Eric snapped._

'_Have you considered not being the father of that baby?'_

'_How about you first give me some proof the kid can't be mine and then I'll consider being cheated on. But until then, I think I know the situation better than you do,' Eric retorted. 'And if you don't mind, I don't want to wait too long for an appointment.'_

'_We can squeeze you in tomorrow at 2,' the lady answered after the sound of a few key strokes._

'_Thanks, much appreciated.'_

_Taylor was in his arms the moment the connection was cut and he held her tight. Sobs started wrecking her body and he just pressed a kiss to her hair._

'_Thanks for believing me,' Taylor sniffled when she calmed down a little._

'_You've never given me a reason not to.'_

'_What are we going to do now?' Taylor muttered._

'_Breathe, for one,' Eric answered, stroking her hair. 'And then we can either go for adoption or we're having another kid.'_

'_You wanna explain to Karl how we're giving his sister up for adoption because we didn't want a kid in the first place?' Taylor challenged._

'_At least we've got a little more time to prepare this time around,' Eric laughed. 'We are going to need a bigger house, though. I'm not sharing a bedroom with a baby and having her in Karl's room isn't ideal either.'_

Eric's results had come in a few days later. Turned out the vasectomy had failed because over the years a new connection had grown and Eric's sperm count was back up. It didn't happen very often, but it did happen. Considering Karl's birth, it was just their luck it happened to them.

Just like with Karl, Taylor's pregnancy progressed almost unnoticed. But at 32 weeks she'd developed preeclampsia, causing their baby girl to be delivered by emergency C-section at 34 weeks. Taylor had had just enough wits about her to request her tubes to be tied during the procedure. She wasn't taking any more risks regarding pregnancies. During their stay in hospital, Eric would bring Karl to school and then spend the rest of the day sitting with Taylor or the incubator that held their baby.

The moment Taylor had been well enough, she'd made sure to punch Eric over the name he'd given their little girl. After a stay in hospital for 2 weeks, they were allowed to take their daughter home.

Despite their best efforts of exposing her to yellow, her favourite colour had turned out pink. She'd had Eric wrapped around her little finger within days of being born and was definitely his little princess. For Karl it had been love at first sight and he had been making an effort to be the best big brother ever. He'd helped out wherever he could.

'I should snap a picture for Wes,' Taylor commented.

The little 3-year-old girl in bright pink princess dress was out of her chair in a flash and launched herself at Taylor shouting momma. Taylor effortlessly caught her and cuddled her close.

'Hey, Amelia,' she muttered, kissing her hair.

Eric leaned an elbow on the table, looking even more ridiculous in that position, and leaned his head on his hand. The smile and his face told her he was admiring the sight just as she had earlier. Amelia was a splitting image of Taylor except she had inherited Eric's dark locks.

Karl got up too and came over for a hug. 'You're home early,' he mentioned as his arms wrapped around Taylor's waist.

'Yeah, well, since it's your birthday tomorrow, your dad and I figured I'd take half a day off and we'd take you and your sister to that new indoor playground and then to Chucky Cheese afterwards,' Taylor smiled.

'Really?' Karl's eyes light up.

'Surprise,' Eric smirked.

An hour later Eric and Taylor were sitting at one of the tables in the restaurant area of the playground. Karl was at the trampolines with Amelia. He quickly waved at them with a big smile on his face, before grabbing hold of Amelia's hands again so they could jump together.

Eric reached out and caught Taylor's hand. She turned to look at him and he tightened his grip on her hand.

'Hard to believe that ten years ago we were completely oblivious about what was about to hit us, is it?'

Taylor glanced at her children and squeezed his hand. 'Honestly, I still don't know how we did it.'

'Well…' Eric's teasing tone had her turn back to give him a sharp look.

'Not that!' she scowled. 'This whole parenting thing. We were completely unprepared.'

'A little bit more when it came to Amelia,' Eric shrugged. 'But we're still together as a family.'

Taylor's eyes narrowed at his choice of words. 'What do you mean by that?'

Eric sighed. 'I'm just wondering if we've had practise enough now.'

'Practise?' Taylor raised an eyebrow.

'We've been doing this family thing for 10 years now and a friends-with-benefits deal for years before that still. And… Well, I don't want to keep calling you just my baby momma and I don't want to be your baby daddy anymore.'

'You promised we'd do this together,' Taylor snapped. 'You can't take back being my baby daddy, haven't been able to since that first fuck up.'

'Exactly,' Eric agreed. 'We are doing this together. Haven't we gathered enough proof that we're not about to mess things up if we relabelled some things?'

'Like what?' Taylor asked confused.

'Like me calling you my girlfriend, or my woman, or something. Calling this thing we have by what it actually is, a relationship, not just a family, not just baby momma and baby daddy, but a real romantic relationship. I want to dump the kids at our friends sometime and take you on an actual date. For you to call me your boyfriend or your man when you're talking about me. I'm not saying "let's get married", but damn it, I love you Taylor Earhardt and I've been in love with you for years and I want to be able to actually tell you that.'

Taylor stopped his rambling by placing her free hand over his mouth and smiled. 'Okay.'

Eric blinked at her in surprise. 'Okay? Just like that? I thought I'd have to fight you on this.'

'I guess this did turn into a relationship somewhere along the way, didn't it?' she shrugged.

'And our friends saw it long before we were willing to admit it,' Eric laughed.

'Eric?'

'Yeah?'

'I love you too,' Taylor smiled. 'I love those kids of ours too, no matter how they came to be. And, I guess I'd love to go on a date with you. Just one condition.'

'Name it,' Eric grinned.

'Nothing else changes, no fancy restaurants and candlelight dinners, no suddenly coming home with flowers and no holding hands and that kind of shit. I want you to stay the same old Eric and if you do want to bring something home, it'd better be a six pack or a bottle of something stronger.'

Eric laughed and nodded. 'If you promise the same, you've got yourself a deal.'

Taylor leaned over. 'Deal,' she whispered, before kissing him.

'Iew!' Karl's voice interrupted them. Amelia giggling beside him.

'Did you need something?' Eric asked.

'We want ice cream,' Amelia exclaimed.

'Fine,' Eric sighed and got up. 'What flavour?'

Karl and Amelia cheered and followed Eric. Taylor watched them go with a smile. And when Eric returned with a banana and mango ice cream for her, it widened. After all these years they'd come to know each other so well, the idea of being a couple wasn't that daunting anymore.

_A/N: Happy International Power Ranger Day, everyone! This is the last one in this little series._


End file.
